Efforts to defuse Korean nuclear crisis speed up

CHINA yesterday offered to host talks between the United States and North Korea over their nuclear standoff and Russia said it planned to send a top official to key capitals to help find a diplomatic solution.

As international efforts to defuse the crisis speeded up, an Australian delegation flew to Pyongyang to discuss possible steps while senior US envoy James Kelly arrived in the Chinese capital after talks in Seoul with South Korean leaders.

Earlier, North Korea reiterated a demand for bilateral talks with the United States, a statement that appeared to hint that it, too, was looking to defuse the crisis after weeks of fiery anti-American rhetoric. Washington accuses Pyongyang of covertly developing nuclear weapons, a charge it denies.

“If the relevant sides are willing to hold dialogue in Beijing, I think we would have no difficulties with that,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told reporters.

“We hope the United States and North Korea can resume dialogue swiftly because we think that talks are the most effective channel for resolving this problem,” she said.

China, Pyongyang’s closest ally, has taken a relatively balanced approach to the nuclear dilemma, calling on the United States and North Korea to talk their way through the problem and keeping in regular contact with all the sides.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence minister said President Vladimir Putin planned to send a special envoy to Pyongyang, Beijing and Washington.

“In the last few days certain hopeful steps and statements have emerged which I would say look to return the situation to what it was before the current crisis,” Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

He said the man Putin was sending was Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, one of the ministry’s top Asian experts.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Wall Street Journal that if the North agreed to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Washington still would need “a new arrangement” that would better constrain Pyongyang’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. While that pact halted production of fissile material, it “left intact the capacity for production,” the Journal quoted Powell as saying. “I think, therefore, that we need a new arrangement and not just go back to the existing framework.”